


It's the end of the world as we know it

by Say_it_aint_so



Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 18:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8544361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Say_it_aint_so/pseuds/Say_it_aint_so
Summary: The apocalypse started on a Monday, because of course. Mondays didn’t suck enough.





	

The apocalypse started on a Monday, because of course. Mondays didn’t suck enough. 

The sky turns the colour of blood by the weeks end as the dust clouds block out the sun and begin the slow suffocation.

“This is how the dinosaurs died, you know,” Tanya says apropos of nothing –or perhaps apropos of everything. They’re huddled around the small fire, sitting on empty milk crates and wearing all their Earthly possessions. Charlie sits on his cabinet; he’d die before abandoning that last piece of his first home, even as his second burns around him. 

(He’d nearly killed all of them on the hazardous journey from the school to his house to retrieve it. Quill had rolled her eyes at Ram’s protests and asked what he expected from someone who had selfishness embedded in his DNA.)

“I think you’ll find that the dinosaurs were the victims of a comet’s poor spatial awareness.” Quill huffed, wrapping a coat she’d stolen off one of the many dead people around her petite frame. “Not human idiocy.”

“We should be positive,” Charlie stands up, dropping his own stolen coat like a king tossing off his robe. 

(Quill had somewhat delightedly gathered supplies for them. She’d been less than delighted at Charlie’s lack of appreciation of her efforts and his condescension of her methods.)

“The Doctor will save us. He always does. It’s what he does. Everyone knows it.”

“Yeah, well for someone with a time machine, he’s pretty damn late.” Ram rubs his robotic leg with one hand, the other is tangled with April’s. The phantom pains in his missing leg were stronger these days. He thought it was a warning. Things would always get worse. 

“He’ll save us.” Charlies words were a prayer thinly veiled as a statement. Matteusz wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close. His belief and his boyfriend were the only things keeping him from screaming at the idea of losing another world. “He did it before and he’ll do it again.”

“But he didn’t save all of us.” April’s voice was quiet. She didn’t talk much anymore. Her endless optimism faded the second the knife in her mother’s side had stopped her breathing. She was their second best fighter now. Quill even let her go scavenging by herself. 

Silence falls. The fire crackles. Quill thinks that she can hear screams in the distance. But they might just be memories. She’s witnessed two apocalypses and sometimes they blur together like a permanent nightmare. 

“What if he doesn’t?” Tayna asks wheat they’re all thinking but are too scared to ask. “What if this is it? End of the world, Armageddon?”

“Then we save ourselves.” April says simply. Her hand falls to the crow bar Quill had helped her shape into something resembling the shadow swords she used to wield. “I’m not ready to let any one else I love die.”

**

Charlie tries to be their leader, tries to use the skills his family taught him. But he fails, like he failed his people. He always fails. 

It’s been three weeks. They found Matteusz’s parents yesterday. They’d been in the church when it collapsed. Even St Jude couldn’t protect them. 

They were all orphans now. 

He’d tried to comfort his boyfriend. But he’d said the wrong thing and Matteusz never came to bed last night. And he’d left on a scavenging hunt with Quill as soon as it was light enough. He didn’t even say goodbye. 

Charlie sits on the rooftop of the mosque they’re sheltering in, obscured from street view by a chimney. 

(During the first three days when the worst of the fallout kept them locked inside the school, Quill had taught them how to hide, how to scavenge, and how to survive. She was much better teaching that than physics. Except their tests were more stressful. Fail and die was not a positive grading scheme.)

He stares morosely at the dustbowl that was his second home. He was going to watch this home be destroyed as well. They all knew it now. But no one said anything. Quill even kept her nihilistic thoughts to herself now; she didn’t want to take what little hope the others had. He never thought she’d show such compassion.

It was just a matter of time. Sunlight barely penetrated the ash cloud now. Humans couldn’t breathe without covering their mouth and nose and even then they struggled. Even Charlie coughed his way to sleep at night. 

Matteusz shouldn’t be out there. He shouldn’t be scavenging with Quill. They shouldn’t be scavenging full stop. It was theft. They stole from dead people. That was what the prince of Rhodia was reduced to. Grave robbing to prolong avoiding up in a grave. 

(Ending up in a grave was optimistic. They burned every body they came across. Apparently, decomposing bodies carried too many diseases to leave them. He’d expected Quill to be the one callous enough to suggest such a thing. But it was April. Quill had merely carried most of the bodies to the football field and burned them. She said her immune system was better than the weak humans’ and wouldn’t let them do it.)

He was a disgrace (he even had mud on his face, like that song that he and Matteusz used to dance around to). 

A prince twice failed. Even his boyfriend couldn’t look at him. He preferred Quill’s (Quill!) company to his. 

“FYI, you suck as a guard dog.” April sat down next to him. 

He startled and lost his perch, feet sliding down the roof tiles. 

Her hand grabbed the back of his hoodie and pulled him back from the edge. She didn’t let go until he was safely seated again. 

“I suck at this.” The earth vernacular twisted in his mouth unnaturally. He still couldn’t get it. Yet another failure. 

“At being a boyfriend or surviving the end of the world?” She spoke casually, like they were catching up over a bad cafeteria lunch. It was unnerving how well April dealt with the horrors life threw at her. She’d gone from victim to king. And she was still kind. 

“Both.”

April nudges his shoulder. “No one expects you to be perfect. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“I told Matteusz that his parents were better off dead because they didn’t have the flexibility of thought to survive.” He looks her in the eye, self-hatred emanating from every pore. 

“Yeah, not your finest hour.” April concedes. She picks his arm up and wraps it around her shoulder snuggling into him like her faith in him could be shared through osmosis. “But you can fix it.”

“Can I?” He wishes he could but he doesn’t know how. 

“You can try. It’s better than spending the end of the world alone.” Her head drops onto his shoulder. 

“But I have you. I’m not alone.”

“It’s not the same, is it?” She looks up at him, doll eyes full of understanding he doesn’t deserve. 

“No, I miss him.”

“He’s still here. Go be a boy standing in front of boy asking him to love him.” April smiles and he frowns. 

“I’m missing a pop culture reference, aren’t I?”

“Yep.”


End file.
